


Bed of Nails

by far2addicted



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Feel-good, Fluff, I know the title sounds like angst but it's really not, Light-Hearted, M/M, Minor Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Physics Class, School Projects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-12 14:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12961185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far2addicted/pseuds/far2addicted
Summary: When Asahi and Noya are partnered together for a final project in their physics class, Asahi is anything but thrilled with having to work with the short hyper boy whose loud voice makes him uncomfortable. Noya would rather work with his best friend Shouyou, but when the opportunity to work with his long-time crush presents itself, he jumps on it. Now all he has to do is convince Asahi that they work as well together as he thinks they do.





	1. Physics

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is not my first ever fic I've posted, but it is my first one on this site and I'm still figuring out the formatting. Hope you enjoy!

Takeda walked into the classroom to the herald of a chalkboard eraser hitting him squarely in the face. The classroom instantly quited as the eraser fell to the floor with a puff of chalk dust, leaving him with a powdered yellow face and a light dusting of chalk on the shoulders of his sweater. He stared at the class full of previously unruly students, who now had the countenance of angels plastered so firmly on their faces that halos seemed to glow over their heads.

“Okay, who threw this eraser?”

No one spoke for what seemed like hours, then a tiny boy with brown hair spiked up on his head and a single tuft of his cowlick dyed a bright blond jumped to his feet and pointed at a redhead next to him, equally as short.

“He did it!”

The redhead also shot up with an affronted gasp. “Don’t blame me, Noya! I won’t get in trouble for you again! He threw the eraser, Sensei!”

“Did not, Shouyou! You threw it!”

“No, you!”

“You!”

“You!”

“You!”

“Alright, alright!” Takeda finally managed to shout over his quarrelling students. “I know it was one of you two boys. Now, is one of you going to confess, or am I going to have to send you both the principal's’ office?”

The threat scared the boys enough to sit back down, but both of them remained as tight lipped as ever. With a sigh, Takeda made his way to his desk and pulled a hand wipe from a drawer and used it to wipe the chalk dust of his face. Occurrences like these were common enough that he had enough reason to keep them stocked there in ample supply.

With a sigh, Takeda threw the now filthy rag into the waste bin. That was probably most of it, at least. “I’m waiting, Hinata, Nishinoya. Is one of you going to confess?”

The two boys exchanged a single glance, then both of them looked back down at the floor quickly. Seeing as there was nothing more to be gleaned from them, Takeda turned his attention to the other occupants of the room.

“Anyone else have something to say?” When no one responded, he singled out a student in the back row. “Azumane. You’ll tell me, won’t you? Who threw that eraser?”

The student Takeda had called on had been keeping his head down as best he could, not that that was very easy considering his taller than average height, but now he jerked into an upright position. “S-Sensei?”

“You heard me, Azumane. Who threw the eraser?”

Asahi flinched as the entire class turned around to look at him, trying to sink down into his chair, though that was an impossibility considering the extra five inches added to his stature as opposed to the average of the room. He had long hair that he had a penchant for tying back in a bun with a headband to keep the wispy strands out of his eyes, and although he looked like the toughest hardened criminal in the class, Takeda knew from experience that he was the most kind-hearted student in perhaps the entire school and couldn’t tell a lie on principle, which was why he had asked the glass giant instead of another student.

“Azumane?” He prompted, and the boy jumped again.

“Well, um, I wasn’t really… I… ah…”

In the face of Takeda’s level stare, Asahi shrunk further in on himself.

“It was Nishinoya…” He whispered and then almost immediately afterward hid his chin down in his collar as Takeda turned his stare on Noya.

“Nishinoya Yuu, did you throw that eraser at me?”

Noya immediately stood up, though the action actually diminished his height. “I’m really sorry, Sensei! It was an accident!”

Hinata jumped up as well, though being a scant few inches taller than Noya, he was actually taller standing than sitting. “It was my fault, Sensei! I bumped into him when he was cleaning the chalkboard! He didn’t mean to throw it!”

“Don’t be stupid, Shouyou, it was my fault! I’m the one who was trying to clean off the board for Sensei before he got here!”

“But you were just trying to be nice and I was messing around! It’s me who should get in trouble, not you!”

“No, me!”

“No, me!”

“No, me!”

“No-!”

“Boys!” Takeda shouted over the din. “Please, just stop. I get that it was an accident. Just try to be more careful next time, okay?”

The two gave such exact nods of agreement as they sank back down into their chairs with identical smiles that Takeda had to remind himself that they weren’t actually twins, just best friends who had a habit of finishing each other’s sentences and at once blaming the other for mistakes they had made and blaming themselves for mistakes the other had made. He wondered briefly if they planned scenarios like this one ahead of time to get out of the office visit they had been heading toward, but then he decided he didn’t want know the answer to that question, especially if it were true.

“Now that we have that out of the way,” he announced to the class, “I have an announcement. As it says on your syllabus, today is the day your final project for this class is being assigned.”

“What’s the project again, Sensei?” Noya shouted without bothering to raise his hand.

“I was just getting to that,” Takeda said tersely. “Your final project is partner project of a topic of your choosing, as long as it pertains to the class. And no,” he added as soon as he saw Hinata open his mouth, “You can not choose your own partners. I have already chosen them. As this is a physics class, you will be required to take a concept from physics we have learned throughout this semester and prepare an experiment around that that concept. The Project will consist of an experimental proposal, your experiment, a lab report, and a presentation in class. Are there any questions?”

Noya raised his hand, though he might as well not have because he asked his question before Takeda called on him. “Can Shouyou and I work together?”

“The pairs have already been chosen-”

“But have we been chosen to work together? Can we convince you work together? Can we switch partners to work together? Can we-?”

“You are not working together and that in final! I remember far too well the last time I allowed that to happen!” Takeda exploded, and Noya fell silent with his mouth hanging open. With a sigh, he fell down into his desk chair and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Please be quiet while I read off the pairs for this project. First off is Hinata Shouyou and Kageyama Tobio-”

“I have to work with Bakageyama!” Hinata shouted, and the aforementioned dark-haired student across the classroom gave him a baleful glare.

“Believe me, it’s not the ideal situation from my point of view either, Shrimp.”

“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME-?!”

“What did I just say about being quiet while I announced the pairs!” Takeda roared over the din. “Now be quiet, both of you, before I send you to the principal’s office for the fifth time this month!”

The two boys quieted, but still cast glares at each other out of their peripheral vision. Takeda sighed and went back to reading off his paper. Those boys were going to be the death of him, he swore. “Next pair is…”

After a few minutes, the entire class was paired up, and he only had one group left on his list. “And last but certainly not least, Nishinoya Yuu and Azumane Asahi.”

Noya, predictably, jumped up from his seat again. “I have to work with Asahi? Please let me switch, Sensei, please! Shouyou and I will do a good project this time, we swear, just let us work together!”

“The pairs have been chosen and will stay like that,” Takeda said, folding the piece of paper and placing it in his desk with no room for negotiation in his voice. “You are to work with your assigned partner and no one else.”

“But I don’t want to work with Asahi! He’s scary-!”

Takeda was on his feet before Noya could finish his sentence, the shattered hurt in the gentle back row giant’s eyes galvanizing him to action. “Nishinoya! Do not speak to your fellow classmate that way! Apologize to Azumane at once!”

“But-!”

“I said, apologize!”

The steel normally not present in Takeda’s eyes must have convinced Noya, for he slumped in his chair and muttered a quiet, “Sorry, Asahi.”

“Dismal, but passable.” Takeda sat back down at his desk. “You may take the rest of the period to decide what concept you want to explore and what you want your experiment to be. A rough idea is due by next class, and your experimental proposal is due the class after. Remember, your proposal has to be approved before you can start on your experiment.”

“Yes, Sensei,” the class chorused, and as one got up out of their chairs and started chatting, some about the experiment and some not. Takeda had given up trying to contain them, so he just let them do as they pleased. If they didn’t get the work done by the end of class, that was their own fault.

 

“So, Asahi…” Asahi looked up to see a familiar face decorated with a blond tuft of hair in the center of his forehead smiling ruefully down at him. “Looks like we’re working together, huh?”

Asahi remembered all too well the argument that had culminated with his most hated insult, but he just nodded dumbly as Noya sat down opposite him - sitting in the chair backwards, with his feet dangling on either side of the seat and his chin resting on the backrest - and continued chatting as if he hadn’t made any kind of response at all.

“Sorry for making a big fuss earlier, but Shouyou and I really wanted to work together. We already had it all planned out and everything. We were going to make something that exploded! We weren’t positive what yet on how it would fit into the curriculum, but we could have figured that out later. It would be awesome! Say, I wouldn’t be able to convince you to make something that blew up with me, could I?”

Asahi found himself shaking his head desperately before his mind caught up with his body. Noya looked disappointed, but he at least had the decency to concede and not force his point after such an abject refusal.

“Oh, well. It would have been fun, though. What have you been thinking about, then? Got any good project ideas?”

“Um…” Asahi looked down at the piece of paper in front of him that he had been taking notes on. Some of them were possible project ideas. He shoved the paper at Noya so he wouldn’t have to read it out loud.

Noya picked up the piece of paper and scanned it. “Ooh! These all sound cool! Calculating coefficients of friction - ha, we could make cars skid around for that!”

Blanching, Asahi tried to reach for the paper back, but Noya didn’t notice his hands and kept reading, and Asahi didn’t have the courage to pluck it from his grasp.

“Pendulum stuff… spring stuff… hey, Asahi, these are all building projects. Do you know how to build stuff?”

Noya’s eyes met his over the top of the paper, and it took Asahi a few seconds to react to the fact that he had just been asked a direct question. “Um… yeah, I’ve taken shop classes before.”

“Nice!” Noya flashed him a grin that almost made Asahi forget the insult from earlier as Noya clearly had. “I bet that would come in handy. I can do the artsy stuff and you can do the hardcore stuff. Perfect combination!”

Asahi didn’t bother to correct him that his area of expertise was actually in the more delicate aspects of decorative woodworking.

“We should definitely build something, then. But what? Maybe-”

Before Noya could finish his sentence, the bell rang and whatever he was going to say was lost to the shuffle of chairs as the school day ended. Noya himself jumped up and gave Asahi a salute before running out the door, Asahi’s notes still clutched in his hand.

Asahi waited until the classroom was almost empty before he stood up and walked to the front of the room where Takeda was sitting at his desk. “Sensei? Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Looking up, Takeda’s gaze softened when he saw who it was, though his gaze was still drawn to the paperwork on his desk. “Of course, Azumane. What is it?”

Asahi bit his lip, contemplating the best way to say what he wanted before he just decided to go with it. “Please let Nishinoya work with Hinata!”

“What?” Now Takeda gave Asahi his full attention. “Of all people, I would not expect this from you, Azumane. Are you two having some kind of problem?”

“It’s just…” he faltered, then gritted his teeth and foraged ahead. “Nishinoya had his heart set on working with Hinata, Sensei. He won’t be happy working with me. Please, I can work with Kageyama instead, or even by myself, I don’t mind.”

“Are you sure that’s your only motivation?” Takeda asked pointedly.

Flushing under his teacher’s knowing gaze, Asahi muttered, “He makes me… uncomfortable. He’s too loud. And he called me…” he let the sentence trail off into silence, knowing that his teacher would be able to fill in the blanks for him.

Takeda’s eyes were kinder as Asahi met them in surprise when he reached out and touched his shoulder. “I understand, Azumane, but you’re going to have to work with people who make you uncomfortable your entire life, and high school is only the start of that. I can’t make an exception for anybody, not even you. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to continue the project with Noya, and that’s my final word on it.”

The door to the classroom creaked, and both Asahi and his teacher looked up from their discussion to see Noya standing there, a slightly subdued expression on his face that said he had heard at least some of the conversation that had just taken place. His expression soon brightened to the level it had been at before, though, leaving Asahi to wonder if he’d just imagined the flickers of hurt dancing at the corners of his eyes.

“Hey, Asahi! I just remembered that we needed to meet up before the next class so we can finish deciding what our project is going to be, and then I realized that I didn’t even have your number! Can I see your phone for a minute?”

“Um…” Asahi didn’t like the idea of the hyper boy a full two heads shorter than him handling his phone, but he handed it over anyways under the watchful eye of his teacher. “Here.”

Noya quickly tapped his screen a few times, then handed Asahi back his phone before the technology-clumsy giant would have managed to navigate past the home screen. “There you go! That’s my number. Text me sometime tonight so we can figure out a time to work together this weekend!”

Asahi barely had time for a nod before a second bell rang, and Noya’s eyes widened. “I’m going to miss my bus! Text me; don’t forget!” Then he ran out of the room again, leaving behind a stunned and slightly terrified Asahi along with his amused teacher.

“Now that doesn’t look like someone who is against being your partner,” Takeda said, the corners of his lips twitching as he tried to hide a smile.

Shrugging, Asahi slipped his phone into his pocket and took a step back from the desk, bowing to his teacher. “I understand, Sensei. I’ll work with Noya. See you next week.”

“Yes, Azumane. See you next week.”

Asahi went back to his seat to grab his backpack and headed out the door of the classroom, unable to bear the knowing gaze of his teacher on his back any longer. Unlike Noya, he lived close enough to walk to school, so he didn’t have to worry about catching a bus, and they were pulling out of the school driveway when he unhurriedly made his way out of the building. A single tuft of blonde hair caught his attention through one of the bus windows, and he was reminded of the new number sitting in his contacts list.

So he wouldn’t forget to do it later, Asahi pulled up Noya’s contact on his phone and sent him a single text message.

_This is Azumane. ___

____

____

 

Noya was play-wrestling with Hinata on the bus when his phone buzzed, distracting him and allowing his sparring partner the upper hand. It was an unknown number. As he unlocked his phone to read the message, Hinata grappled him into a chokehold, then loosened his grip upon realizing that the other boy was no longer responding.

“What is it, Noya?”

“Text.” Noya’s eyes skimmed the message quickly.

The message was short, simple. _This is Azumane. _Noya quickly sent the unknown number a message back.__

____

____

_Awesome, thanks! We’ll talk later tonight about when we want to meet up this weekend to figure out what we want to do, okay? ___

____

____

The response was not quick in coming, but it eventually overtook the three dots blinking on his screen for what seemed like an eternity. _Okay. ___

____

____

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to set Noya’s heart fluttering. In truth, he hadn’t been scared of Asahi himself when he’d protested their being put together for the project. He’d been afraid that the gentle giant would discover the size of the humongous crush he’d had on him for the better part of a year.

Noya had first been drawn to Asahi for his intimidating stature and the dark, badass aura he seemed to carry around him, but as he slowly observed him more, he came to realize that the heart that lurked within was much softer than the skin he had been born into. That dichotomy only made him more interested. It smarted a little that he’d heard him trying to get their partners switched, but Noya supposed he couldn’t blame him considering the fuss he himself had made on the subject. He would just have to try harder now to convince Asahi that they could work well together on the project… and maybe more in the future. Trying unsuccessfully to hide his grin from Hinata, Noya took the unknown number and programmed it into his phone.

“Who was it, Noya?”

Noya pushed his friend’s face away from his phone, just in case he caught sight of the nickname he’d given Asahi. “Just my partner for the project.”

Looking back down at his phone screen, he verified that the change had saved, rereading the last message his partner had sent.

_Asahi ♥: Okay. ___


	2. A Light Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Asahi finally got up the courage to make his way to Noya's house, he's greeted with a pleasant surprise that he tried to convince himself is an unpleasant one. Meanwhile, the boys decide what their project should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks so much for the support so far! I'm super excited to see all the hits I have already, and thank you so much for all the kudos! It really makes my day every time I see one. Hope you all enjoy this chapter as well!

Asahi stared at his phone for a full ten minutes, trying to decide what to type, before he finally managed to send a text to Noya. 

_When should we get together to discuss the project?_

____

____

He threw his phone down on the couch next to him, expecting to have to wait for a response, but it buzzed less than twenty seconds later, starting him out of his awkward slump. 

_Whenever you want! You want to meet up tomorrow morning? You can come to my house._

____

____

Asahi felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, but he forced himself to type a reply. 

_Sure. Where do you live? ___

____

____

After Noya sent him his address, Asahi put his phone down and got ready for bed. He was going to need all the rest he could get to steel himself for another altercation with Noya. 

 

Across town, Noya checked over his shoulder to make sure no one would witness his reaction before clutching his phone to his chest and letting his body take over his common sense to do a little wriggle of happiness. Asahi was coming over tomorrow! He would see Asahi tomorrow, and in his own home! He couldn’t contain his joy. 

“Yuu? What are you doing?” 

Noya jerked around to see his mother leaning against the frame of his bedroom door with a knowing kind of smirk on her face. 

“Nothing! I’m just excited because a friend of mine is going to come over tomorrow to work on a school project we have!” He paused in his excitement for a moment. “Wait; is that okay?” 

A look of uncertainty passed across his mother’s face. “Is it Shouyou?” 

“No. His name is Asahi.” 

“Okay.” Relief visibly clouded his mother’s face, and Noya felt a little affronted. He and Hinata weren’t that bad when they got together, were they? “That’s fine. I’ll be at work all day tomorrow, so make sure your show your guest proper hospitality. There’s stuff to make sandwiches in the fridge and some snacks in the pantry-” 

“I got it, mom! I’ll be a good host, so don’t worry about us. Asahi is a no-nonsense kind of guy, so we won’t get into any trouble either.” 

Noya though he heard his mother mutter, “That’s a relief,” under her breath, but it could have been just his imagination. 

In a louder voice, she said, “Just make sure to get some actual work done and not just goof off, okay?” 

“We will, Mom, I promise.” 

“Okay. Good night, then.” 

She closed his door and Noya hopped into bed, though he suspected it would be a long time before he was able to sleep that night. Grinning, he tucked his phone underneath his pillow and tried to calm his racing heartbeat. When that failed to work, he jumped out of bed again and fired up his computer. Maybe Shouyou would still be awake, and they could play a few rounds to exhaust Noya and then maybe he could get some sleep. 

 

At nine o’clock sharp the next morning, Asahi stood in front of the door located at the address Noya had sent him the night before, hand paused a hair’s breadth away from knocking. They hadn’t decided on an exact time, but Asahi figured that nine was about as solid a time for a meeting in the morning as any. Still, what if he was still eating breakfast or something? What if he wasn’t even awake yet? What if Noya had sent the address with a typo and he was standing in front of the wrong house? What if he had sent the wrong address on purpose because he was mad that Asahi had tried to switch partners the day before? 

All this was going through his head as his hand remained frozen in front of the door, unable to convince itself to knock. Just before he got up the courage to do it himself, however, the door was suddenly opened from inside and Asahi found himself looking down at a very confused woman who blinked up at him. 

“Who are you?” 

Asahi flinched and instantly stumbled a few steps back from the front door. “I…! My name… Azumane-! Um… Nishinoya… project… I’m so sorry, I’m probably at the wrong house-” 

She cut off his babble with a clap of her hands. “Oh, right, I forgot Yuu mentioned that a friend of his would be coming over to work on a project today. Make sure you boys don’t have too much fun while I’m out, you hear?” 

The only part of that sentence that fully registered in Asahi’s brain was the word friend. Would Noya really classify him as such? He then realized that the woman - presumably Noya’s mother - was staring at him expectantly, but all he could do was blink at her, too embarrassed to ask for her to repeat the question, so she just sighed a little and held the door open. 

“I was just on my way to work, but Noya’s still in his room if you want to go see him. Straight through the living room, then down the hallway and it’s the second door on your right. See you this evening if you’re still around when I get back!” 

Then the door suddenly shut behind Asahi, and he found himself all alone in the middle of a stranger’s home without any sense of anything to ground him. Well, at least he knew he was in the right place now. Discomfort tickled the back of his neck and sent shivers down his spine as he stared around the small kitchen. He needed to find Noya before he would feel comfortable enough to do anything else in this unfamiliar house. 

Where was it that his mother had said he would be? Second door to the right? Asahi found the hallway and then made his way to the correct door, pausing only a few seconds before he rapped on the door before his nerves could talk him out of it. 

On the other side of the door, he heard a yawn and a rustle of fabric, then the sound of feet padding softly against the floorboards accompanied with a sleepy voice. 

“’M awake, Mom, jus’ give me a sec…” 

The doorknob jostled as it was touched from the inside, then the door opened, revealing a yawning and very underdressed Noya rubbing sleep from his eyes. Asahi’s stunned gaze was instantly drawn downwards to his bare chest, a lot more muscular than he would have thought for someone so tiny, then further down to the minuscule shorts he had obviously slept in and the very little the article of clothing left to the imagination. As Noya yawned one final time and reached up to push his sleep-tousled blond cowlick out of his eyes, Asahi wrenched his gaze up from where it had been lingering at the hem of Noya’s shorts as it stretched around his solid thighs - bad eyes! They shouldn’t look there! - just in time to catch the shock that blew across Noya’s face. 

“Wha-?! Asahi?! What are you doing here?!” 

“I-! I-!” Asahi helplessly floundered. “We said we were going to meet this morning, didn’t we?” 

“Fuck dude, the morning is like eleven, not now! It’s practically still dark outside!” 

Asahi was having a hard time keeping his eyes on Noya’s face, though he didn’t want to look anywhere else for fear of being accused of staring. “The sun came up three hours ago.” 

“Like I said: practically still dark outside.” Noya frowned, itching his side as if he couldn’t care less that he was practically naked in front of one of his classmates. “But how did you get in? My mom usually locks our door when she leaves.” 

“I met her coming out as I got here,” Asahi admitted, blood flooding his cheeks from more than just embarrassment when Noya raised up onto his tiptoes to stretch. 

Noya whistled. “Damn, you were here early. Well, you’re here now, so we might as well make the most of it. Just give me a bit to wake up properly, okay?” 

Asahi nodded fervently, then added, “And maybe… you know…” He gestured vaguely to the skin on display and averted his eyes so they were staring at the ground. 

Finally seeming to realize that he was standing in front of someone he didn’t know very well in just his underwear, Noya jerked and shrank in on himself. “Oh my God-! I totally forgot-! Why didn’t you say anything earlier? I am so sorry I made you uncomfortable! Go sit in the living room and I’ll be out in a few minutes!” 

The door slammed in Asahi’s face and sounds some drawers slamming could be heard from behind it. It was just in time; a few seconds longer, and Asahi would have had to explain why his nose was projectile bleeding all over the Nishinoyas’ hallway rug. A little stunned and more than a little irritated at his body, which had decided years ago that it preferred the male form over the female, for liking the display a little too much, Asahi made his way back he way he had came and sat down on the couch with his eyes closed, trying not to think about tiny shorts and the even smaller body they contained. 

After a few minutes had passed, without warning Asahi found himself propelled a scant half inch off the couch by the impact of a small body vaulting over the back of the furniture and landing next to him. 

“Darn. I’d hoped you’d go higher than that. My mother always does, but then again, you’re a lot bigger than she is.” 

Asahi wrenched his eyes open to see Noya sitting cross-legged on the couch next to him, his feet tucked up on top of his knees in a position that should have been impossible yet looked so natural. He was fully clothed now in a pair of athletic shorts that hung down to his knees and an overlarge t-shirt, both of which swam on his lithe and - Asahi now knew from personal experience - muscular frame. 

“S-so, about the project-” He started, trying to distract himself from his thoughts, but he was soon plunged directly back into them with a vengeance as Noya leaned over almost in his lap and clasped a hand over his mouth. 

“It is way too early on a Saturday morning to think about schoolwork! Come on, Asahi, watch a movie with me first!” 

“But… but… movie?” Asahi could barely manage, and Noya dropped the remote in his lap before vaulting over the back of the couch again. 

“Yep! There is no way my brain is awake enough for physics right now. I need food and some mindless entertainment, and then the studying can commence. Do you want anything?” 

“Um… no, I’m good, thank you. I ate before I got here.” 

“Suit yourself. Pick out something good while I’m gone, okay?” 

Then he left Asahi sitting, flummoxed, in the center of his living room again, staring blankly at a the screen of a television flickering on across the room. From behind him, he heard the slamming of cupboard doors and the opening and shutting of a refrigerator door, followed by the crinkling of a food package and the sound of something pouring. Trying to distract himself, he paged through the screen of movies available for streaming when the TV loaded. They were all suggestions based on what Noya, or someone else in his family, had watched before, and Asahi noticed that they all hung a little heavy on the action side. 

“Find something you want to watch?” 

Asahi just about jumped out of his skin and fumbled the remote when Noya spoke just behind his ear, nearly dropping it. He had paused on a title but the description said it was some kind of gangster flick and he didn’t want to reinforce the misconceptions about himself, so he quickly clicked to the next one over without looking at what it was. 

“Um, how about this one?” 

“Sure, fine by me.” Noya again vaulted over the back of the couch, this time holding a bowl full something and a glass full of milk. Asahi repressed a shiver; one of these times, he was going to either hurt himself or make a mess of something, hopefully not the former. Why couldn’t he sit down like a normal person? “Play it, man!” 

Asahi hit the button as Noya had demanded and shrunk into the couch as much as his tall stature would allow him as the other boy scooted closer to him. It was some kind of Asian-inspired action flick, that much he could tell, but he had precious little brainpower to follow the plot of the movie - if there even was one beyond sword and explosions - as the majority of his mental functions were devoted to trying studiously to ignore the ever-narrowing gap between himself and Noya. Eventually when Noya shifted to place his empty glass of milk on the low table in front of them, he settled back so his arm was brushing against Asahi’s. 

Despite himself, Asahi looked down at the shorter boy - which was very easy for him to do - and his brows knit together. “Are you… eating Chex Mix for breakfast?” 

Noya glared up at him with puffed out cheeks, and Asahi was sure that the cute expression was making him blush. “Chex Mix has cereal in it! It’s a breakfast food!” 

“I don’t think that’s how that- nevermind.” 

Lifting the bowl, Noya asked, “You want some?” 

Asahi shook his head. “I’m good, but thanks.” 

“Are you sure?” The bowl danced tantalizingly just below Asahi’s chin, and he finally caved. But not because Noya was adorable looking at him like that. He wasn’t. He was too pushy, and Asahi didn’t like pushy people, no matter how good they looked in just their underwear. 

_Focus, Azumane! ___

____

____

“I suppose I can have a little,” Asahi allowed, and Noya cheered as he took a small handful and ate the pieces one at a time so Noya wouldn’t have an excuse for offering him any more. 

_Damn it for being so delicious. ___

____

____

Suddenly Noya jumped up from the couch so suddenly that he almost upset his bowl of Chex Mix. “Asahi, look at that! That looks awesome! Let’s do that for our project!” 

Asahi finally focused on the screen to long enough to see what was happening. Some people were performing what appeared to be a heist of some kind assisted by a spring-powered propulsion mechanism to get them over the wall of the building they were trying to break into. 

“That’s not feasible.” 

“Not even if we just did a little one and shot rocks into the air or something-?” 

“Sensei will never let us do anything that involves throwing rocks.” 

Heaving a huge sigh, Noya settled down into the couch again, this time leaning against Asahi. He had to be doing this on purpose, right? “I suppose. I’ll come up with something better.” 

A scant few minutes later, he popped again in excitement. “This one is even better! Let’s make this, Asahi!” 

“Remember what I just said about throwing things? Sensei will never let us build a catapult!” 

“I bet he would! We could do it with beanbags covered in chalk and make one that we can aim and try to hit a target and the chalk will be left on the target so we can see how well we aimed! There’s lots of math involved in trebuchets, right? I bet Sensei will love it!” 

Asahi shook his head. “I refuse to do anything dangerous.” 

“But it won’t be dangerous if we’re careful-!” 

“Noya, anything with you is dangerous. I’d be afraid to let you swing a hammer.” 

“...Point taken.” He settled down into the couch again with a disappointed expression, now leaning fully against Asahi’s arm. 

This time, Noya lasted almost ten minutes before he jumped up again and pointed at the television screen in excitement. “Oh my God, that is so cool! We should make that! Asahi can we? Can we? _Please? _”__

____

____

Asahi refocused his attention on the screen, fully intending to veto Noya’s latest hairbrained scheme, but when he looked, he didn’t see anything that would fit into what he had come to surmise of Noya’s brand of ‘cool’. “What?” 

“This!” Noya paused the movie and stabbed at something in the background of the screen. Asahi had to squint to make it out. 

“Is that… a guy laying on a bed of nails?” 

“Yes!” Noya rounded on him with an excited grin. “It’s perfect! We can build it, and it doesn’t throw things! We can talk about the distribution of force over the points of the nails, and that’s why it doesn’t hurt! Please, Asahi?” 

Asahi looked from the excited expression of Noya’s face to the television screen, then back to Noya. Well, he thought, it was a heck of a lot better than a catapult. 

“Sure. Why not?” 

Noya had clearly expected him to say no again, because his face absolutely lit up. “You mean it? You really mean it?” 

That expression was not cute at all. “It’s the best-” _safest _“-idea you’ve had so far.”__

____

____

“Awesome!” He launched himself at Asahi and tacked him deeper into the couch. “We’re going to have so much fun Asahi! Let’s go get supplies right now! Come on, come on, let’s go!” 

The attack took Asahi’s breath away for several seconds so he was unable to voice his doubt. “Ah- we should get permission from Sensei first! He might not agree with the idea, and then we’ll have done all that work for nothing.” 

Noya looked up at Asahi from where he had buried his face in his stomach. “What do we do then?” 

“I’ll email him.” Asahi pulled his phone out and, under Noya’s watchful eye, typed up a quick email to Takeda and sent it. 

“What do we do now?” 

“I suppose we have to wait,” Asahi said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. 

“Then we can finish the movie?!” 

Despite himself, Asahi found a small smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. “I guess we can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shameless Plug*  
> If you want to follow my blog, it's here:  
> https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/far2addicted
> 
> Feel free to ask any questions about my story, my schedule or anything there!


	3. Drill, Hammer, and Nail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noya and Asahi get started on their project, including a trip to pick up supplies that had Noya's mind going places it probably shouldn't.

 

When the movie finished, Asahi could quite confidently say that he hadn’t comprehended a single thing that had happened in it, thanks in part to his short companion who had decided that Asahi’s lap was a great place for him to plant himself. By the time the credits rolled, Noya had slowly integrated himself into Asahi’s personal space until his front half was laying quite comfortably across the giant’s legs as he sat on the couch, back ramrod straight. He had had to force himself not to sit on his hands to prevent them from brushing up against his newly acquired lap cushion by mistake.

Stretching like a cat begging to be petted, Noya rolled over onto his stomach and grinned up at Asahi. “That was a fantastic movie! Don’t you agree?”

Asahi made a noncommittal noise and shifted his legs, hoping Noya would get the hint and leave his personal bubble. If anything, though, the movement only seemed to encourage the other boy to get more comfortable as he started to talk with his hands- and in fact, most of his upper torso.

“I mean, it was all like _bwoosh_ and then it was all _gaahh_ and after that it was- I’m sorry, Shouyou talks like that all the time. I forget that normal people don’t say those kinds of things sometimes.”

“Mm…” Asahi could only humm for a moment, then he reached for his phone as a distraction to the wriggling boy in his lap. “Ah, let’s see if Sensei responded to us yet…”

“Great idea.”

Unfortunately, the phone proved to be out of reach in Asahi’s current predicament, and Noya showed no signs of moving anytime soon. Feeling exceedingly awkward, Asahi cleared his throat.

“Do you mind… maybe… so I can…” 

“Oh, sure.” 

Noya reached over and grabbed the phone, handing it to Asahi. It wasn’t quite what he’d been looking for, but he’d take it at the moment. Anything to distract himself from the heat slowly seeking through the fabric of his pants. What else could he have done? Asked Noya to move, in his own home? Or worse, push him off? Asahi shuddered. He could never be that rude. 

Checking his email, Asahi found one from Takeda. He opened it with no small measure of trepidation; he still wasn’t sure whether he should want the teacher to approve this particular project or not. It was better than some of the alternatives Noya had suggested, but was still way above his normal level of unobtrusiveness. 

“He approved it,” he said after a long moment of introspection, rereading the email twice to make sure. 

“Awesome!” Noya finally jumped off Asahi’s lap and vaulted over the back of the couch, landing on his feet like a cat. “Let’s start then! What do we do?” 

“We need supplies first,” Asahi said slowly, standing up and looking at Noya over the top of the couch. “We need to make a list. Nails, wood, tools-” 

“We don’t need a list! This is easy; just show up at the hardware store and grab the stuff we need! Come on- there’s one five minutes down the road!” 

And that was how Asahi found himself being dragged out the door by an overexcited Noya almost before the boy had remembered to put his shoes on.

  


Noya barely felt the nip in the air of the falling autumn as he pulled Asahi along behind him in his headlong dash down the road to the hardware store, so warm was the large hand that encased his own. He had to resist the urge to giggle and skip his way down the sidewalk, knowing the lumbering giant behind him would probably fall if he did so, thrown off by the change of pace. 

He’d initially been worried about their meeting today, but the casual way Asahi had snuck into it had at once thrown away all the hairbrained plans he had made and made everything seem easy. After all, this project wasn’t his end goal; now that he was used to the idea of them doing it together, Noya thought that maybe he could use the excuse to get close to Asahi and convince him that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for them to spend some more time together outside of schoolwork. 

In a purely platonic way, of course. 

The romantic parts could come later. 

But he’d been worried about messing it all up. After all, he hadn’t made the best first impression in class if Asahi had wanted to switch their partners, so it was up to this second out-of-school first impression to sell himself to the stoic giant. And, while it hadn’t gone spectacularly, it could have gone a lot worse. 

Who would have thought that Asahi would be such an early riser? Okay, given what Noya knew about his personality, it was probably an acceptable speculation, but it was the weekend! Who gets up that early on a weekend if they don’t have to? Noya certainly didn’t, so he counted his appearance in his pajamas - let’s face it, his underwear - as completely understandable. And he counted it as both a blessing and a curse, because while Asahi had been uncomfortable with the situation, Noya had noticed something else. 

Asahi had looked at him, and he had liked what he saw. Which meant that Noya had a chance. 

“Come on, Asahi! We’re almost there!” 

“Do you even know what we need?” He gasped out, pulling back on their conjoined hands to slow Noya down. 

“Nope! That’s what your expertise is for, isn’t it? Let’s go!” 

He dragged the two of them through the door of the hardware store, then regretfully dropped their hands as soon as it closes behind them. He didn’t want to make Asahi uncomfortable if anyone made any assumptions about them. At least, not yet. 

“Hey, Ukai! How are you?” 

The gruff man behind the counter looked up from his magazine and glared at Noya. “What do you want this time, you brat? You can’t just come in here all the time and take away my time from paying customers.” 

“But I am going to buy something this time,” Noya pouted. 

Ukai only snorted. “As if. The last time I believed you, you were twelve and thought you were going to grow more than three more inches in your life.” 

“...Wow, Ukai, that was low.” 

“He is telling the truth, though, Ukai-san,” Asahi suddenly chipped in from behind Noya. “We’re here to pick up some supplies for a school project.” 

“Asahi!” Ukai’s expression immediately warmed. “How are you doing?” 

“Wait.” Noya looked swiftly back and forth between them. “You know each other?” 

“Course we do,” Ukai said carelessly. “You think a great handyman like Asahi would come anywhere but the best hardware store in town? He’s practically a regular.” 

Asahi blushed. “I have come here quite a bit before. I’m more confused as to how you know him, Noya.” 

Trying not to get too distracted by the way Asahi said his name, Noya shrugged. “He used to coach this kid’s volleyball team I played with when I was younger. I haven’t left him alone since.” 

“You were pretty good at it, too,” Ukai said with a glimmer of fond memories in his eyes. “It’s a shame you never grew tall enough to be a great player.” 

“It’s a shame the high school doesn’t have a team, or I would have found a way to play despite my height.” 

“I didn’t know you liked volleyball, Noya,” Asahi said thoughtfully, and Noya instantly jumped, aligning his body with that of the taller boy. 

“I love it! Still play sometimes, but it’s hard by myself so I do it at the gym with some of the kids.” 

“They’re barely shorter than he is,” Ukai snorted. 

Bristling, Noya turned to snap at him but a warm comfortable hand fell on his shoulder and his breath was effectively stolen away. 

“We did come in here to pick up some things, Ukai-san,” Asahi said, and Noya felt the vibrations from his deep voice all the way down to his hand resting on his shoulder. The sensation made him shiver. “If you could help us…?” 

“Sure.” Ukai finally put down his magazine. “What kind of stuff are you looking for?” 

“Hmm… let me see…” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “We need a two foot by four foot sheet of plywood, at least several dozen five inch nails, a large drill bit, probably size 15/64 depending on the size of the nails…” 

Noya’s jaw dropped; he hadn’t considered the possibility, but listening to Asahi talk shop like that was kinda- no, scratch that, it was _really_ hot. He got distracted by the way Asahi was describing things with his hands and zoned out for a minute, only to be jerked back to reality when Ukai moved out from behind the counter. 

“I’ll go get your plywood cut to the size you want, so go ahead and pick out your nails. I know you know where they are, and the drill bits are in the next aisle over.” 

“Thank you, Ukai-san.” Asahi bowed briefly to him, then took Noya’s arm and pulled him off down an aisle filled with nails. 

 _I’d let you nail me any day, Asahi._  

Okay, mind, now it’s time to focus on more constructive things… 

“Hmm… were going to need some bigger ones…” Asahi muttered to himself as he moved down the shelves, reading the labels. 

“Why?” Noya asked, struggling to keep up with his giant strides. 

“We’ll need less of them, among other things,” Asahi answered distractedly, drawing his finger along the labels of some of the larger nails. “It will be easier to spread the weight out if the nails have a larger diameter as well.” He pulled out a nail from a container and held it up for Noya’s approval. “What do you think?” 

The confidence oozing from Asahi in his natural element was sexy, but even Noya had to admit that the nail might be a bit, well, much. “It’s not a bit… _too_ big?” 

Asahi deflated, and Noya instantly felt bad knowing he was responsible. “No, you’re right. This one’s probably a better size.” 

The second nail was smaller than the first, not by much, but enough that it looked manageable to Noya now. Four inches long and over a quarter inch in diameter, it looked like it could be used as a weapon, but at least it no longer had the appearance of a small sword. 

“We’ll lose a bit of it to the plywood, like this,” Asahi said, demonstrating by fitting the nail between two knuckles on his hand. 

Noya nodded. “How many do we need?” 

Asahi’s frown deepened. “Not sure. I would have liked to plan a bit first, but…” the rest of his sentence was left hanging in the air, and Noya cringed. “We can just estimate. We can always come back if we need more,” he quickly added as an olive branch when he saw Noya’s crestfallen expression. 

“Sounds like a plan,” he said dully. 

“Here.” Asahi pulled out several handfuls of nails and handed them to Noya. “We’ll take this much.” 

The next aisle was easier than the first; Asahi knew exactly what he needed and all Noya needed to do was watch him peruse the larger drill bits, comparing them to the size of the nail until he found the one he wanted. 

“Plywood’s done,” Ukai announced as Asahi turned back, triumphantly holding the correct sized bit in his hand. “You boys ready?” 

“That should be it for now, yes,” Asahi said mildly. 

Noya followed him to the counter where he placed his nails next to the drill bit. He dug in his back pocket for his wallet, but while he was distracted he looked up to find that Asahi had already paid for the entire purchase. 

“Asahi! You didn’t have to do that!” 

Asahi only shrugged. “I’m going to be able to use the drill bit anyway because it’s a size I don’t have. It’s not that much. We can figure it out later.” 

Perhaps it was Noya’s subconscious desires running to the surface, but he found himself joking before he knew what he was saying. “Maybe I can take you out to lunch sometime to pay you back,” he quipped. 

He only realized what he had said after the fact, when the blush was starting to creep across his nose and Ukai’s eyebrows were crawling up his forehead. Asahi, however, seemed not to realize what Noya had just done and nodded. 

“Okay.”

They ended up walking out of the hardware store with Noya carrying the bag full of nails and Asahi with the piece of plywood they’d bought, his biceps bulging as he carried it under his arm. Not that Noya was looking, of course. When they got to the sidewalk, Noya hesitated. 

“Where should we…” 

“Let’s go to my house,” Asahi offered. “I have the tools that we need.” 

Noya knew it was pragmatically the best situation, but he still felt a little thrill at the thought of going to Asahi’s house, of seeing where he lived. 

“Let’s go then!” 

And that’s how the two of them found themselves hunched over a large piece of plywood together in Asahi’s garage, squinting down at a series of dots he was drawing. Noya had absolutely idea what he was doing, but he was content to watch Asahi’s concentrated face as he worked. For a while, at least. 

“What are you doing?” He finally asked, breaking the silence. 

Asahi jumped a little at the question, then laid down his pencil so he could give Noya his full attention. “We need to figure out how far apart to space the nails. Too far apart, and they won’t be able to hold the weight, but too close and the board might splinter apart.” 

“Oh.” Yeah, that seemed like a detail someone like Noya - or Shouyou - would consciously overlook. It was a good thing he was working with someone organized like Asahi. “How can I help?” 

His brows drawing together, Asahi surveyed his surrounding as if they might offer some kind of magical answer, then his eyes lit up. “We need to file the sharp point off the nails. You can do that while I figure this out.” 

Confused, Noya held up one of the nails and touched the tip. “Why do we need to file the nails? Isn’t the the point to- ouch! Oh, okay. I get it now.” 

In a few minutes, Asahi had him set up filing the sharpest points off the nails against a block of wood covered in sandpaper while he drew more dots and measured the distance between them. Noya had just finished the last of the nails when he leaned back and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Done.” 

“Me too!” Noya brandished a newly filed nail at Asahi. “What next?” 

He quickly found the nail snatched from him and replaced with a pencil. “Now you finish drawing the dots. We need them in a grid with three quarters of an inch between each dot.” 

Noya pouted. “But why can’t I-?” 

“Because the tools we need to use are _dangerous_ and I’m not going to let you touch them,” Asahi said firmly, and Noya found his knees weakening so much at the strength in his tone that he couldn’t even offer a complaint. 

He drew three rows of dots amidst a desperate struggle in his mind trying to keep it in the present moment. A line scrabbled across the plywood when the sound of a drill shocked him, and he looked up to see Asahi holding a power drill in his hand, fitting into it the bit they had just bought at the store. His mouth went dry when Asahi pulled the trigger, letting it whirr. 

 _I’d let you drill me any time- okay, Noya, get your mind out of the gutter._  

“Switch to the other side,” Asahi ordered, bringing the power drill closer. “It’ll go faster if we work at the same time.” 

Asahi was going to start getting suspicious if Noya kept doing what he was told without complaint every time he used that voice. Trying to hide the tremble in his legs, Noya moved to the other side of the board and started to measure out the distance for a few more dots. He was distracted, however, by the whirring of the drill, and soon found himself staring at the way Asahi held the drill and pushed it down through the board with the ease that could only come with practice instead of doing his job. 

After Asahi had finished a row, he glanced up to see that Noya had stopped working, and he lifted the drill up with a sigh. “You want to try, don’t you?” 

 _No, I want to watch the muscles in your arms bulge as you do it._ But that wouldn’t be the best thing to admit right now, and Noya can feel the appeal of the whirring tool, so he just said, “Yes.” 

With a sigh that coming from anyone else might have been call dramatic, Asahi gestured him closer. “Alright. Come here, then.” 

Noya grinned and dropped his pencil, running too quickly to the other side to be considered safe in a workplace. He held out his hands, expecting Asahi to place the drill in them, but instead he just turned Noya around with a strong grip on his shoulder. That hand guided him to step nearer to the table they have the plywood balanced on, then Asahi stepped in close behind him. Noya promptly forgot how to breathe when he felt the warmth of Asahi’s large body pressing against the back of his shirt. 

“The first thing I want you to remember is that this thing is dangerous, okay? If you slip, you could end up in the hospital for stitches, so _be careful_. I won’t let you do it if I think you’re going to hurt yourself. Okay?” 

Noya nodded, not sure if he could manage much more with the heat of Asahi’s body causing a line of sweat to drip down the small of his back. 

“Now I want you to hold it like this.” Asahi held the drill securely in his palm, demonstrating the way his fingers curled around the grip, before handing it to Noya. “Careful…” 

The drill was a lot heavier than Noya expected, and he was glad that Asahi still had a hold of it when he gave it to him, otherwise he might have dropped it. Grabbing hold of it with two hands, Noya placed the tip against the next dot that needed to be drilled. “Like this?” 

“It needs to be perpendicular to the board.” 

“It _is_ perpendicular to the board.” 

“No, it’s not.” Asahi’s hand came down over Noya’s, straightening the drill. “ _This_ is perpendicular.” 

Noya’s breath caught at the heat engulfing his hand, and he felt his palm start to sweat. With Asahi’s guidance, he pulled the trigger on the drill and bared down into the board, punching a hole through before pulling it back out. 

“S...see? That wasn’t so hard,” Noya said, but he suspected that the effect was rather ruined by his breathlessness. 

Asahi chuckled low in his ear, and Noya had to catch himself on the table to prevent his knees from buckling. “Now can you do it on your own?” 

 _Only if you don’t move_ , Noya wanted to quip back, but he just lined the drill up on the next dot, this time making sure it was _perpendicular to the board_ before drilling a hole. When he pulled the drill back out, pride swept through his chest and he spun around to grin at Asahi. “I did it!” 

Asahi narrowly caught the drill before it smacked him in the face. “And this was why I didn’t think you should do it in the first place.” 

Noya deflated and looked down at his shoes as Asahi reclaimed the drill. “Sorry, Asahi.” 

“Still, good job.” 

Noya’s face shot back up at the complement, just in time to see the see the tail end of an indulgent smile on Asahi’s face. As if suddenly realizing how close they were, he cleared his throat and moved away. 

“I should probably finish up myself, though. Mark a few rows more on the other side, then we can switch again.” 

This time, Noya did as he was told, not sure if his already weak knees could handle any more strain. It took them more time than he anticipated, though less time than it could have taken, for the two of them to finish up all the holes. 

“Are we done yet?” He groaned, flopping down in a nearby chair as Asahi coiled up the cord of the power drill and put it away. 

“Almost. Now we have to hammer the nails in.” 

 _I’d let you hammer me any- damn, I need to stop doing this._  

With a groan, Noya dragged himself up from the chair and came back over to their semi-finished project. “Okay. How do we do that?” 

Asahi raised a single eyebrow. “...With a hammer. And a nail.” 

“Very funny.” Noya picked up a nail. “Alright, where’s the hammer?” 

Asahi pulled two out from a workbench and passed one to Noya. “Do you need me to show you how to do this, too?”

Maybe if he said yes, Asahi would help him like he had with the drill. 

“...Maybe.” 

Rolling his eyes, Asahi picked up a nail and placed the tip at one of the holes he had just drilled. “We pre-drilled the holes so it would be easier to get the nails through because of how thick they are, so all how have to do is line it up and swing.” With single heavy arm movement, Asahi slammed the hammer down on the head of the nail and drove it halfway down into the plywood. A second blow pushed it down the length of the nail, and a third and lighter blow made sure the head was snugly fitted to the board. As Asahi had predicted, the nail stuck out about four inches on the other side of the board. 

When Noya attempted the same thing, on his first swing he completely missed the nail and hit the board. On the second one, he hit the nail, but at the wrong angle that had it skittering across the board to hit the floor. Gritting his teeth, Noya grabbed the nail, watched Asahi’s angle again, and hit the nail. This time, it went a little way into the board, and he repeated the motion another eight times until the nail was driven all the way down. 

“Look, Asahi! I did it!” 

Asahi glanced up and said, “Good job,” before going back to his hammering. Noya grimaced when he saw that he had put five more nails in during the same time as he had managed one. Huffing, he grabbed another nail and felt validated when it only took him eight swings instead of nine to get it all the way into the board. 

It soon became clear to then that the amount of nails they had bought was not enough to finish their project. After driving in the final one, Asahi sighed and brushed the sheen of sweat from his brow, an action that caused his shirt to ride up and expose his toned midriff. 

 _Focus, Noya!_  

“...should probably finish this some other time.” 

“What?” Noya jerked back to reality. 

“We’re done enough for now,” Asahi repeated. “We should probably finish it some other time. I can figure out how many more nails we need and stop by the store to grab them. Tomorrow?” 

“We have another whole week!” Noya protested. “We can do it some other time. The weekends are meant for a break from school!” 

“Oh.” Asahi looked slightly crestfallen, and Noya suddenly got the feeling that he had missed something important. 

 _Why would he be bummed about not- oh._  

“But we still have other stuff to plan!” He rushed out, trying to fix the situation. “Sensei wants the paper for next class and… and…” He trailed off. 

Asahi gripped the handle of the hammer a little harder, then muttered, “Maybe I could take you up on that offer of a lunch…?” 

For a moment, Noya was stunned, then his heart started beating a mile a minute and he grinned. “Yeah! Absolutely!” 

For the first time, Noya caught sight of the tell-tale pickening of a blush on Asahi’s cheeks. “Great. Cool. So, um… are you hungry? I can make us some sandwiches.” 

The well-timed rumble of Noya’s stomach told both of them that Asahi’s instincts were right. With an embarrassed chuckle, he scratched the back of his head. “Am I really that predictable?” 

“Come on.” Asahi beckoned him towards the door of the house. “I’ll show you where you can wash your hands.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone was wondering, everything they do in this chapter related to hardware is accurate. I've actually done a lot of projects like these over my high school career, including a windmill, a wooden castle replica, and a calorimeter.


	4. The Date-But-Not-A-Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noya and Asahi go out for lunch, in a way that is totally not a date but also completely a date at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! If anyone's following this, I've been updating Saturdays but I missed last Saturday because of the holiday. However, there's only two more chapters left and those should both be up on their assigned dates!

 

Noya must have changed his shirt at least seven different times before he finally settled on one to wear for his completely-not-a-date-but-also-totally-a-date-at-the-same-time lunch with Asahi. Would it be better to go casual or fancy? How casual or how fancy? And he was the one who had invited Asahi, so should he pick out where they should eat? What kind of food did Asahi like? Did he have any allergies? WHAT THE HELL DID NOYA THINK HE WAS DOING?! 

“AHHHHHH!!!!” 

Noya banged his head on his closet door in frustration, then clamped a hand on his forehead as pain exploded through his skull. “DAMN IT!!” 

“Yuu, honey, what’s wrong?” 

Noya looked up through his fingers to see his mom hovering at his bedroom door. He grimaced. 

“Oh, hey, Mom. Sorry I worried you. I just… can’t figure out what to wear,” he admitted with a embarrassed shrug. 

She raised her eyebrows. “For what occasion?” 

Noya hessitated. “So, you remember my friend who came over yesterday?” 

She nodded. 

“So… it’s not a date.” 

She said nothing. 

“But… it’s not _not_ a date.”  

“And therin lies your dilemma,” she surmised, and Noya nodded dejectedly. 

“What do I do?” He groaned, throwing himself facedown on his bed. “I’m this close from just taking him through a fast food drive through and then eating it in a park somewhere.” 

“So why not just do that?” 

“Because I don’t want him to think I’m cheap, that’s why!” Noya rolled over onto his back and glared at the ceiling. “I don’t even know what kind of foods he likes! What if he’s deathly allergic to carrots or something?” 

Noya’s mother sat down on the bed beside him and ran a hand through his hair. “Noya, sweetie, people aren’t deathly allergic to carrots.” 

“You know what I mean!” He peered up at her with a pout. “I don’t know what to do. Help me!” 

Shaking her head with a smile, she suggested, “Why don’t you just ask him?” 

Noya sat up straight on his bed. “Because…” he trailed off. “Actually, that’s a great idea. Why didn’t I think of that?” 

“Because I’m the Mom, that’s why,” she said as if that answered everything. Clapping him on the shoulder, she stood up. “Good luck on your quest today!” 

She started towards the door, only to be drawn up by one last shout from Noya. 

“Wait!” 

When she looked back at him, Noya drew in on himself sheepishly. “Would it be okay if I borrowed the car today?” 

“Well, I normally wouldn’t allow it,” she started and Noya felt his heart sink, but then she grinned at him. “But I have the feeling that this is a special occasion.” 

“Thanks, Mom!” He launched himself from the bed and into his mother’s arms. She laughed and patted him on the head. 

“Yes, yes, I know.” She kissed the top of his head before letting go. “Go get that boy, hun! He’s a cutie.” 

“I know,” Noya sighed, then shook himself out of dreamland. “Thanks, mom.” 

“That’s what I’m here for.” She winked at him one final time and disappeared down the hallway, leaving Noya alone with his phone, his undecided wardrobe and his huge crush, trying to decide how best to phrase his question to Asahi. 

  


Little did Noya know, across the town Asahi was having much of the same deliberations, switching his gaze back and forth between a soft grey t-shirt and jeans and a light blue plaid button down and khakis, trying to decide which one would be more appropriate for the outing where he didn’t even know where they were going. 

Would it be better to just go for the fancier outfit? That way at least he wouldn’t show up underdressed if they were going somewhere nice. But what if Noya was wearing the same things he had been yesterday, loose clothes for weekend comfort and Asahi showed up in something like this? He might as well wear a full tuxedo! 

So probably casual was the best way to go. Nice casual could sometimes pass as fancy, right? And his jeans were very nice. 

But what if _Noya_ showed up in a tuxedo?  

Asahi sat down on his bed and let his face fall in his hands with a groan. This would be so much easier if he just knew where they were going! But Noya hadn’t told him, probably to keep it a surprise. Asahi wasn’t a fan of surprises, but the energetic shorty probably was. 

Why had he even thought this was a good idea in the first place? Noya probably wanted to be done with him as soon as he could when the project was finished. This idea of a lunch - he swallowed thickly - _date_ was an inane one. He should probably just cancel before Noya had to put too much effort into it.

Just as Asahi was starting to drown himself in self deprecation, his phone buzzed with an incoming text. He was tempted to ignore it, but then it buzzed again and he picked it up with a sigh. To his surprise, it was from Noya. 

The first message read: _Hey, Asahi! I’m trying to figure out where to go for lunch. What do you like?_  

The second, which came in only a few seconds after, read: _Also, do you have any allergies?_  

Tapping out a quick reply, Asahi felt his cheeks picken a little. _I’m good with most anything, and no allergies._ He was touched that Noya even thought to ask.  

Noya’s response was quick. _Yeah, but what do you_ like _?!?!_  

Asahi bit the inside of his lip. _I like hot foods, I guess. Anything spicy._  

 _Spicy! I can make that happen! Can I come pick you up around 11:30?_  

Glancing at the clock, Asahi saw that it was a little past nine in the morning. That meant he still had several hours to get ready. So Noya’s personal philosophy about sleeping in on the weekends didn’t extend to situations like this, he realized with a smile. 

 _Sure, I can swing 11:30._  

 _Perfect! See you then!_  

 _See you then._  

Asahi lay down his phone, realizing as he did so that he had failed, yet again, to ascertain how fancy he should dress for the occasion. After a sigh and a last long deliberation, he finally decided that if he wore the shirt and jeans and put a nice jacket over the top of them, he could alternatively pass for either casual or fancy if the situation required it.

  
  


Noya parked the car outside of Asahi’s house at 11:17 and sat back in the driver’s seat, too nervous to go knock on the door and be this early but even more nervous at the prospect of being late. He pulled down the visor and checked his hair in the mirror for the umpteenth time, grimacing at what he saw. His hair stuck up the same as always, but at least it had some character to it. 

He was shocked out of his musings by a knock on the passenger door window. Glancing up, Noya jumped and almost died when he saw Asahi smiling at him through the window, amused at the sight he must make. Sheepishly, Noya rolled down the window. 

“You’re here early,” Asahi said lightly. 

Blushing, Noya admitted, “I didn’t want to be late. Sorry if I’m too early; you can just come out when you’re ready-” 

“That won’t be necessary.” Asahi blushed a little himself. “You’re not the only one who didn’t want to be late.” 

It took a few seconds for the implication of his statement to sink in, but when it did Noya started grinning like an idiot. “Are… are you ready now, then?” 

Asahi’s eyes twinkled. “If you are.” 

“Ya- um, yes! Get in!” 

Noya rolled the window up as Asahi opened the door and got in the car. The small car seemed even smaller as he ducked his head to avoid hitting it on the low ceiling. When he had buckled his seat belt, Noya started the engine and pulled out of the Azumane’s driveway. 

“So, where are we going?” Asahi asked as they accelerated down the road. 

“Well, you said you liked spicy stuff, and I remembered this great Indian restaurant that I went to a few months back. Their food is really good, a little out of the ordinary, and plenty spicy if you ask for it, so I thought-” 

“Noya.” 

Noya glanced sideways to see Asahi clutching the fabric of his pants at the knee, but smiling. “I’m sure it will be great.” 

Noya nodded, and drove.

  
  


“And then when Shouyou finally woke up, he didn’t even notice all the permanent marker on his face! Nobody told him, either, so when he went home his mother totally freaked out because she thought someone had beat him up!” Noya stopped to laugh and beamed proudly at the small laugh he managed to draw from his dinner companion. 

Asahi had been so cute when they got out of the car, going around to open up Noya’s door even though he was driving and then opening the door of the restaurant as well. He had been a little worried that Asahi wouldn’t like the particular brand of spices and flavors that came with Indian cuisine, but he ate with gusto, finishing off a dish so large that even Noya himself would have had trouble putting down. Both of them were done eating now, but neither one of them was inclined to leave, and they kept chatting softly as the waiter came back again and again to refill their waters. 

“But he wasn’t really hurt, was he?” 

“Nah, of course not.” Noya waved a hand dismissively. “We would never do that. It was pretty convincing, though.” 

“Your friends sound like they get into quite a bit of mischief,” Asahi observed. 

“Well, yeah! How else are you going to keep things interesting?” Noya gestured at Asahi. “What about yourself?” 

He jumped like a startled wild animal. “M-me?” 

“Yeah. How do you and your friends amuse yourselves?” 

“Um, I don’t…” He blushed and looked down, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t really… people get put off by my looks sometimes… and I’m not really… um… like that… and-” 

“Asahi.” Noya leaned forward with a frown. “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t have any friends?” 

Asahi didn’t respond, but his silence was answer enough. 

“Well, that is absolutely not true.” 

His head shot back up. “How…?  


“You’ve got me, haven’t you?”

When his brain caught up to his mouth enough for him to realize what he’d just said, Noya blushed a harsh shade of red that rivaled even Asahi’s cheeks. Both of them sat staring at their empty plates, their cheeks flaming, until the waiter came back to check on them. 

“Are you ready for the check now?” 

“Ah, yes,” Noya managed, and the waiter handed him the check with a smile. 

He only narrowly managed to escape the restaurant without Asahi insisting on paying his portion of the bill, and only after some deception and trickery with the waiter’s willing cooperation. Back in the car, Noya started up the engine, then hesitated. 

“So… what now?” 

Asahi hesitated. “I guess you could just take me home again…” 

But Noya didn’t want their not-a-date-but-also-totally-a-date to end yet, and it was obvious that Asahi didn’t either. 

“Do you want to get some ice cream?” He suddenly asked. 

Asahi refused to meet his gaze, but his cheeks darkened. “...Only if you let me pay this time.” 

Noya couldn’t help it; he laughed out loud as he pulled away from the restaurant. “Just you try.” 


	5. The Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Noya is excited about his progress with the project and with his friendship with Asahi himself, but that all comes to a head when something terrible happens that forces him to fix his mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a warning:  
> There's some very light bullying at the beginning of this chapter. It's not enough that I would tend to think that it's more of bullying and less of a fight, but some people I know can be more sensitive to that kind of stuff so the warning is here just in case.

Noya humed happily to himself as he walked home from the gym where he had just spent a few hours playing volleyball with Ukai and the kids he now coached; Noya himself was too old to be on his team, but he loved helping out the kids, and he also loved how he was taller than most of them. Some of them. Okay, a few of them. 

The past week had been absolutely incredible. Four more times, Noya had come over to Asahi’s house and they had worked together to finish their bed of nails and the other parts the project, the poster for the presentation and the lab report. Or, Noya had pretended to type up the lab report while he watched Asahi’s muscles bunch under the fabric of his shirt as he had finished nailing together their project. Honestly, the equations hadn’t even stood a chance. 

When Asahi had finished, Noya had finally shook himself out of his muscle-induced stupor and got back to typing as Asahi had worked on their poster, his neat (beautiful) script and hand drawn diagrams scrawling across the posterboard. He had put a lot of work into it, and it was amazing. In fact, it was only that morning, the Sunday before the Monday it was due, that Asahi had finished it as Noya had sat across from him, finishing up the lab report and the calculations. Several times, Noya had offered to switch, but Asahi had admitted with a blush that he wasn’t that good at writing reports, so they had left it at that. After Asahi had finished the poster, Noya offered to take it with him and bring it to class the next day so Asahi wouldn’t have to worry about both it and the huge piece of plywood studded with nails that they’d fabricated. 

Unable to resist putting a little spring in his step, Noya hummed to himself as he clutched the rolled up poster in his hands a little tighter. It had been too large to fit in his small gym bag, so he’d opted for carrying it. He didn’t notice the three boys materialize out of nowhere and start tailing him until the first one tapped him on the shoulder.   

“Whatcha lookin’ so happy for, lil’ gay boy? Finally found someone willing to be gay for your short ass?” 

Noya’s back hunched and he shook off the other boy’s hand. He never got bullied - he was too good at standing up for himself - but sometimes a person just couldn’t get along with other people to the point that they fought every time they say each other. It didn’t help if the first person who made you realize that you also liked boys was both homophobic and a dick. It also didn’t help if you used to be friends with him so you still had trouble punching him in his stupid face. 

“I asked you a question, shorty!” 

Noya’s teeth gritted together as he swung around to glare at his agresser. Damn him for knowing all Noya’s weak spots. “What’s it to you? You interested in my ass? Short or not, it’s better than most people’s, including yours.” 

Okay, so that probably wasn’t the most intelligent thing Noya could have said at that point, but he still refused to back down. Narrowing his gaze, he kept eye contact until the other boy looked away. 

“Don’t kid yourself, Noya. As if I’d ever be interested in your ugly gay mug.” His eyes widened as he saw the poster Noya was clutching, and he snatched it out of his grip and unfurled it with a look of triumph. “What do we have here?” 

“School project,” Noya snapped, trying to grab it back, but the other two boys grabbed his arms and prevented him launching himself at the boy. “Oh, real mature.” 

The boy shrugged. “You shouldn’t touch me. Wouldn’t want your gayness to spread.” 

Noya jerked his elbow into the kidney of one of the boys holding him, who squawked but didn’t let go. “For the last time, I’m _bi_ , not _gay_.”  

“Whatever. You’re still a freak.” He unrolled the poster with a flourish. “Take a look at this, boys!” He sneered, turning the poster around so his friends could see. “The little freak is planning his gay marriage bed! With- who’s this? Azumane Asahi? The delinquent?” 

“It’s a _school project_ , you asshole,” Noya spit at him, struggling harder against his captors, but they only laughed and held him tighter. “And Asahi is not a delinquent!”  

“You and your boyfriend will have a fun time with this one,” he cackled, ignoring Noya’s protests. “Just think of it! He’s so big and you’re so tiny that you’ll end up crushed, nails sticking into every part of your body-” 

Around that point, Noya decided that he’d had enough. He smashed his elbow into one of his captors’ face, quickly followed by his kidney, and stomped hard enough on the arch of the other one’s foot that he let out a high-pitched scream. Both let go of him, and he launched himself at the other boy to snatch the poster back, but he danced out of Noya’s grasp with a grin. 

“What’s the matter? Did I hit a nerve with that one?” 

“Give that back!” Noya snarled as he launched himself forward again, but was thwarted by a knee to the stomach that made him double over. 

“Now why would I do that?” 

Glaring up at him, Noya pushed himself back to his feet. “Drop it, asshole. Don’t make me punch you.” 

“As if you could aim higher than my knees,” the boy jeered, holding the poster out of Noya’s reach. 

To prove him wrong, Noya aimed a punch directly into the soft flesh of the boy’s stomach, exactly where he had kneed him. When he dropped down to protect the injured area, Noya aimed his punch higher, to his nose. 

“I said, drop it!” 

Something flashed in the boy’s eyes above his nose that was starting to bleed, and a smile spread across his face. “Poor choice of words.” 

He let go of the poster, and a draft of wind caught it and hauled it spinning out into the road. Without thinking, Noya launched himself forward to try to catch it, only to feel a pair of arms wrapping around his middle to pull him back, sending them both crashing down to the pavement of the sidewalk right before a car passed. 

The poster, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. It touched down on the pavement in a muddy puddle a second before the car’s tires made two filthy tracks directly across it, soaking it through and completely ruining it. Noya was vaguely aware of his attacker’s voice shouting in his ear, rough from panic instead of hatred, but he paid it little mind, his eyes locked on the piece of their project that was now ruined. The piece of their project that Asahi had spent at least eight hours finishing that was now ruined. 

“-such an idiot, why would you run in the road like that? You could have been killed! Noya, what were you thinking!? You can’t just-” 

“Get off me!” Noya struggled against the boy who was pinning him down until his elbows hit the soft spots under his ribs and he was forced to roll off of Noya. 

“Noya, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that happen-! We were just trying to give you a hard time-!” 

Noya pushed himself off the ground with a glare. “Stop talking.” 

He stopped talking in the middle of a word, his mouth hanging open in a way that might be almost comical, in a different situation. Aiming one last kick at the boy sitting on the dirty sidewalk, Noya marched out into the center of the road to retrieve the poster. 

His heart twisted in his chest when he tried to pick it up and the water-weakened paper started to rip. Asahi had spent so much time and effort on this! It just wasn’t fair! Glancing over his shoulder to see if his attackers were still around so he could punch them again and maybe let off a little more steam, but they had already made themselves scarce. Noya looked back to the poster to catalogue its injuries. There was no saving it at this point; they would just have to start all over again. A burn started in the back of his throat as he thought about what that would entail, all the hours they’d already spent repeated in inevitability. 

His stomach churning, Noya bundled up the ruined poster as well as he could and took out his phone to let Asahi know what had happened. He was about to text him when he changed his mind, biting his lip, and hit the call option instead. Asahi deserved more than a text. 

The phone rang and rang, and for a moment Noya was afraid that Asahi wouldn’t answer, considering how much time would go by before he responded to some of his texts, but then he picked up on the last ring. 

“Noya? What’s up? You don’t usually call me.” 

The burn in the back of Noya’s throat got worse. “I- I’m really sorry, Asahi.” 

“Noya?” There was a noise at the other end of the line, as if Asahi was suddenly sitting up. “What are you sorry for? Did something happen?” 

Noya opened his mouth to tell him, but nothing came out; he couldn’t like this, over the phone. “Can you meet me? At my house? Soon?” 

“Noya, can you please tell me-?” 

“Please,” Noya interrupts him, and after a moment of silence, Asahi acquiesced. 

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” 

“Thank you.” Noya barely managed that, let alone anything more, before he hung up and stared down at his phone. His feet trudged down the road, but he barely recognized the steps he was taking until he got to his house and made his way to his room, where he rolled out the mess that remained of Asahi’s beautiful poster on the floor to dry, not that it would do much good. He sat on the edge of his bed and stared down at the ruined work, curling his knees up to his chest. 

Asahi was going to be furious with him. And then where did that leave Noya? Worse off than before the project began, that’s where. Before they had become friends, when all Noya had to do was stare at him longingly from a distance. He would never be able to forgive him, and Noya would never be able to forgive himself.

  
  
  


Asahi was… confused. 

Noya was sitting on his bed with his knees tucked up to his chest when Asahi knocked on the door to his room, not even bothering to get up to let him in. A muffled, “Come in,” was the only invitation he got, so he had pushed the door open to catch sight of the top of Noya’s head, shortly followed by the remnants of the poster that he had spend the better part of the last few days perfecting. 

To say that he wasn’t angry at all would have been a lie, but most of his irritation faded away when he saw how miserable Noya looked. Taking a deep, calming breath, Asahi sat down on the bed next to Noya and laid a hand on his back, drawing a flinch from the shorter boy. 

“Noya, what happened?” 

Finally, Noya looked up at him. Asahi jerked when he saw that his face was puffy, as if he’d spent the time between when he’d called Asahi and now crying, and that the side of his face was scraped up and bruised, as if he’d been in a fight. “Asahi, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin it! I know you worked so hard on it and it was perfect and it’s all my fault-!” 

“Woah! Slow down!” Asahi held his hands up to cut of Noya’s desperte slew of words. “That wasn’t what I asked, Noya. What happened?” 

Noya’s expression did a complete 180, turning from soft desperation to a stone facade in a matter of seconds. “...Nothing. Nothing happened.” 

That drew a frown to Asahi’s face; he didn’t know Noya _that_ well, but he knew him well enough that this wasn’t a simple case of ‘nothing’. “It’s alright, Noya, you can tell me. I won’t be mad, I promise. I just want to know what happened.” _And if I need to finally put my stature to good use and terrify someone._  

He looked away, his jaw working for a long moment before he finally said, “...I fell. Dropped it in the road. Nothing else happened.” 

Asahi couldn’t decide whether he was more upset that the poster was ruined, or that Noya had tried to lie about how it had happened. He didn’t want to fight, though, not when he had just started to get comfortable with the boy and think about maybe pursuing their friendship - _or something more_ , the hidden but insistent parts of his mind suggested, but he shot it down with a quick, _he’s not interested, maybe not even in men and certainly not in a weakling like you_ \- outside of school and this project after it finished. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he looked down at the remnants of the poster.  

It wasn’t a complete lost cause. The center of it had been soaked through and a tire track ran down the middle, but the edges were still salvageable. They would have to start over, but they wouldn’t have to start over from scratch. He cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Do you have any extra posterboard?” 

Noya jerked. “Huh?” 

“We have to fix the poster no matter what,” Asahi explained, kneeling down beside it. “That should come first. It will take a lot of work, but I think we can pull it together tonight if we both work hard. We have the first one as a guide as well, so I don’t think it will take us as long as it did the first time.” 

His face glowing, Noya whispered, “You… you’re not mad at me?” 

Of course he was- but that wasn’t the point here. Asahi just smiled at him. “It was an accident, Noya. Now, about that posterboard?"   
  


They sat on the floor together in companionable, if tense, silence for the first few hours as Asahi used the layout of the first poster as a guide to trace the sections of the new one, then Noya cut out the pieces that were salvageable to paste on the clean poster as Asahi began to copy over the sections. It was tedious work, made especially so since he’d already done it before, but one look at Noya’s morose face took all the will out of him to complain, not that he’d had much will to complain before. 

An unexpected break came in the form of Noya’s mother, who interrupted their work to bring them some food, since neither of them had time to get dinner. 

“Yuu, I brought you and your friend a grilled cheese and some soup if you want it- Nishinoya Yuu, what on earth happened to you?!?!” 

Asahi looked up from his work in surprise to see Noya’s mother angrily slam the tray of sandwiches and soup down on his desk and march across the room to bodily grab him and look at the scrape on his face as he tried to hide it. 

“It’s nothing, Mom, I just fell-!” 

“Don’t you lie to me, young man, unless you want my handprint across your cheek with the rest of those bruises! It was those boys again, wasn’t it? I told you to tell me it they started bullying you again, Yuu!” 

At the word _bullying_ , Asahi looked up, his hands stilling at his work.  

“They weren’t bullying me, Mom, we were just fighting!” Noya bucked against his mother’s grip but she held him firm. 

“This is the third time since the beginning of the school year, Yuu! I told you, I’m proud that you fight back, but nothing is going to be solved between you two if you don’t either talk to him or try to avoid him altogether-!” 

“Well, it’s not like I go looking for his fist to slam my face into, Mom! And in case you don’t remember, the last time we tried to talk it didn’t end up so peachy either!” 

“That’s it!” Noya’s mother grabbed her son by the ear and pulled hard enough to make him yelp, then proceeded to march from the room. “I’m cleaning you up, and then you are going to go back in here and help Asahi fix your mistake, you got it?” 

“Mom! That hurts! Let go!” 

Then the door slammed behind them, leaving Asahi sitting in the middle of Noya’s floor with more questions than answers.

  


About fifteen minutes after Asahi had gone back to copying over the diagrams he had painstakingly drawn, Noya shuffled back into the room looking considerably cleaner and with a bandaid over the worst scrape above his eyebrow. Asahi carefully chewed the remainder of the grilled cheese Noya’s mother had left for him and swallowed. 

“The sandwich was good.” 

“Oh- it was? That’s… that’s good.” 

Asahi went back to drawing. He wasn’t going to be the one who broke the silence. He refused to break the silence. 

After almost a minute of quite, Noya muttered, “So, I, um… I didn’t fall.” 

Asahi didn’t say anything. 

“I was kind of… pushed? And I didn’t exactly drop the poster, either. It was more like… someone grabbed it from me, and when I was trying to get it back, they dropped it.” 

For a moment, Asahi contemplated leaving Noya with only silence again, but at the last second he changed his mind and nodded shortly. 

Noya flinched and looked away. “I’m sorry I tried to hide it from you.” 

Now Asahi put down his pencil and met Noya’s gaze. “Why? What’s so terrible that you can’t tell me?” 

Taking a deep breath, Noya closed his eyes and spoke in a rush. “So the boy who did this to me? We used to be friends. Right up until the moment I told him I was bi. The he hated me for not being straight, and I hated him because he couldn’t accept it. Now we fight every time we see each other, and it usually ends up like this.” He gestured vaguely around the room, though to himself or the ruined poster Asahi couldn’t tell. “Usually I can keep my cool, but this time… he read your name off the poster, and…” 

Asahi really wanted to know what the end of that sentence would be, but Noya just trailed off and shrugged. 

“So there you have it. Sorry for involving you in my stupid mess. But I have better friends now, ones who support me, so I’m really good. Like Shouyou-” 

“-And me.” 

Noya blinked, as if unable to comprehend that Asahi had just spoken. “Wha… what?” 

“And me,” Asahi repeated, stronger this time. He looked back down to the diagram he was drawing and started to shade again. “Friends like me. And I’m, um… me too. I’m not straight either. Well, I’m not bi like you, I’m … firmly on the other side of the fence.” 

He didn’t look up to see Noya’s expression, embarrassment flooding his cheeks. With the way he had stared at Noya in his underwear that one time and the date-but-not-a-date they had gone on, he thought it had been pretty obvious, but it was still nerve-wracking to say it out loud. After a few seconds, Noya joined him on the floor, and against his better judgement Asahi glanced up to see that he had grabbed the other sandwich. 

“It is good,” he said after taking a bite, then he smiled at Asahi, a little of the life he had come to expect from the shorter boy back in his face. “My mom makes the best grilled cheese.” 

“I would have to disagree. You have yet to taste the ones my mother makes.” 

Smirking a little, Noya challenges, “We’ll have to see someday, now won’t we?” 

“Hm.” Asahi pushed the scissors back towards Noya, but he was smiling. “Eat quickly. We have a lot more to do tonight.”

 

As it turned out, Noya’s usefulness only lasted a hour or so longer on the cutting and pasting front because his handwriting, they had discovered, was exactly like him: messily exuberant and all over the place; and Asahi had banned him from writing anything on the poster besides his name. From then on, Noya made himself as busy as possible, but as time went on and the clock ticked further and further past midnight, his lids grew lower and lower until he slumped over onto Asahi’s shoulder as he was writing. He didn’t bother to move him; he only had a little left. 

About twenty minutes later, Asahi stretched, finished with the new poster and forgetful of the boy who had fallen asleep against him. Noya slipped until his head was resting in Asahi’s lap, where his moved sleepily, his nose wrinkling. 

“Mmm… As… ahi? Did you finish-” he yawned “- the poster? I didn’t mean to… fall ’sleep…” 

“It’s fine.” Asahi picked Noya up and laid him on top of his bed before glancing at the clock. It was well past two in the morning, and Noya’s mother had gone to bed hours ago after telling them not to work too late. Oops. “The poster’s on your desk. I better get going now…” 

“What?” Noya woke up a little more, his sleepy eyes widening as Asahi moved to turn off the overhead light, leaving just the lamp next to his bed. “It’s too late to walk home, Asahi; just stay over.” 

Swallowing, Asahi turned back to shut off Noya’s bedside lamp. “It’s okay, Noya, I can make it home-” 

“No.” Noya’s hand settled like a vice against his wrist before he could make it to the switch. “Stay. You’re already tired, and you’ll be even more tired if you tried to walk home. You need to be awake for the presentation tomorrow. Just stay. It’s not that big of a deal.” 

“O...okay.” He flipped the light off and pulled back. “I’ll borrow your couch, then, if that’s alright.” 

“Nope.” Noya’s hand refused to let him go, and Asahi suddenly found himself tumbling into bed beside him. “Sleep here. Couch is… uncomfortable… need your… rest…” 

“Noya,” Asahi tried to protest, but by the heaviness of his breathing it was obvious that Noya had already fallen back asleep, and tiredness pulled so strongly against his consciousness that it wasn’t long before he was asleep as well.


	6. The Presentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their presentation, Asahi and Noya have a decision to make - go back to the way things were before, stay friends, or start something new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the end! Hope everyone enjoyed!

Light filtered steadily into the room from the crack in the curtains hung in Noya’s bedroom window, tickling the end of Asahi’s nose until his eyes cracked open. The moment his gaze landed on Noya’s sleeping face, a scant few inches away from his own, he supposed that he should have been shocked, afraid even, but the peace of the morning took the rough edge of his emotion and dulled it to a calm surprise. Noya’s jaw was relaxed in sleep, his mouth open and his breath stirring the lock of hair that drooped down across his cheek, but his nose was wrinkled in dissatisfaction. As Asahi watched, his hand, resting on the pillow next to him, twitched and sought something to grasp hold of. When it found Asahi’s own hand, the tension drained out of Noya’s face and a soft sigh escaped on a whisper of breath. 

“Asahi…” 

Unable to stop his eyes from widening, Asahi watched silently as Noya curled forward until his forehead was pressed into Asahi’s collarbone. From this position, he could no longer see the adorable scrunch of Noya’s nose, but the light pressure of his small head against his chest was worth it. Without thinking, Asahi slung a hand up over Noya’s shoulder and allowed his fingers to play in the fringe at the base of Noya’s neck. 

He only realized what he was doing when he found himself leaning down to press a kiss to the top of Noya’s head. He and Noya weren’t that close, weren’t dating- they’d barely been friends for a week! How could Asahi let his body betray him like that and take advantage of the situation? Freezing, Asahi tried to disentangle himself from the other boy, but Noya clung to him more stubbornly than a limpet to a sea-washed rock, so eventually he had to give up or risk waking him in the compromising position. 

Noya’s breath was warm and light against the skin of Asahi’s chest where the neckhole of his shirt had been pulled down as he slept. Striving to throw his attention anywhere but on the boy in his arms, Asahi looked around the room until his gaze landed on a clock. He would have sworn aloud upon seeing the time if he spoke that kind of language and wasn’t afraid of waking Noya. He still hadn’t gone home, so he would need to make his way back there and change his clothes before he could go to school that day, not to mention fetch his books for all his other classes. Why had he listened to Noya the night before and stayed over, when he could just as easily have gone home? 

Noya pressed his face against the material of Asahi’s shirt, and his heart raced a little faster. 

Right. Because he was weak. And also very gay. 

He should probably get up and go home before Noya woke up to them laying like this, but Asahi couldn’t convince his muscles to move. Instead, he just stared at the clock on Noya’s dresser, watching the numbers tick closer and closer to the latest time he could leave and still make it to school on time. His limbs and head ached from tiredness and the scant few hours of sleep he had gotten, but Asahi couldn’t fall back asleep, not with the heat of Noya pressing closer against him with every shift in the sleeping boy’s position. 

Asahi could tell both when Noya woke up, the sleepy early morning peace that had held Asahi also taking him captive, and when he realized exactly where he was. However, he didn’t jerk away from Asahi’s embrace like he expected him to, just pulled back enough to blink at him. 

“Asahi…? Why are you in my bed?” 

Heart plummeting in his chest, Asahi’s cheeks flamed an ugly color of embarrassment. “I- I’m sorry, I finished really late last night and you told me to stay- I should have just taken the couch, I know-” 

Asahi found himself cut off by a hand over his mouth as Noya shifted away, leaving behind air cold enough make Asahi miss his warmth. “Shh, not so loud. ’M not a morning person. I remember now.” He yawned, and Asahi found his faith in humanity restored. “And it’s not like I mind.” 

“Please don’t say that,” Asahi whispered fervently. “You’d never say that when you were fully awake.”  _ Don’t make my heart suffer any more than it already is.  _

“Probably not,” Noya admitted, his gaze still a little unfocused. Asahi felt his heart plummet, only to raise itself again at his next words. “But only because I’d be too embarrassed.” 

“You’re embarrassed by being comfortable around me?” 

“No, I’m embarrassed about how much I care.” 

Asahi’s heard stuttered to a painful stop, then leapt forward again. Noya seemed to realize exactly what he’d said a scant few seconds after Asahi did, and his cheeks flamed as he hurriedly pushed himself over the edge of the bed and onto the floor, outside of Asahi’s reach. Luckily - or perhaps unluckily - Noya’s mom chose that moment to knock on the door and interrupt them. 

“Yuu? Is your friend still here? I know you boys went to bed late, but you need to get up soon or you’re going to be late for school.” 

“She’s right,” Asahi sighed, pushing himself into a sitting position on the bed as Noya scrambled off the floor. “I have to go home first, so I have to leave.” 

“...Yeah.” Noya looked down at his feet, refusing to meet Asahi’s gaze. “See you at school, then.” 

Asahi would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised by Noya’s reaction, a little hurt even. Still, he just nodded and laid a hand atop Noya’s sleep-flattened cowlick, marveling at its softness even as he swallowed back words that were fighting to the tip of his tongue. 

“See you at school, Noya.” 

  
  
  


Since their physics class was the last period of the day and it was the only class Noya and Asahi had together, Noya spent the majority of the day in quiet agony, thinking about what had happened that morning. Noya was by no stretch of the imagination a morning person, and when he’d woken up in Asahi’s arms, his brain had essentially short circuited. He wasn’t precisely sure exactly what he’d said owing to the sleep-addled state of his brain, but he was fairly certain that it had been something that pushed the boundaries of the easy almost-flirtatious relationship he and Asahi had cultivated together, and he wasn’t sure how Asahi would take it. Would he be angry that Noya wanted him as more than a friend? 

Or might he want the same? 

Noya shook his head to clear the thoughts away as he stood outside the door to the physics classroom. He couldn’t think about this now. It was time to present their project. He couldn’t mess this up, not if he wanted to pass this class. And he would never throw away all the hard work he and Asahi - or mostly Asahi as Noya provided moral support and math - had already put into it. 

He caught sight of their project as soon as he walked into the classroom. It was impossible to miss, even though it was covered up by a sheet. It was the largest of all the projects that were built, taking up an entire corner of the back room. Asahi was fixing the sheet over the top as Noya walked up to him, rolled poster clutched in his sweaty hands. 

“Hey, I managed to make it here without destroying it this time!” 

The joke sounded flat to Noya, but when Asahi turned around, the line of confusion between his eyebrows smoothed out into a low laugh. “So you did. Are you ready?” 

Nodding fervently, Noya replied, “Let’s get it over and done with before I manage to screw it up again.” 

The frown line returned briefly to Asahi’s forehead, but before Noya could figure out why Takeda-Sensei called from the front of the room for quiet. 

“Students! I know you’re excited, but settle down! Sit with your partners, and we will take turns presenting the projects you have completed to the class. First up is…” 

Noya quickly sniped the seat next to Asahi in the back of the class, closest to where their bed of nails was hidden under the sheet. Normally he would have tried to sit closer to Shouyou, but he and his partner had already grumpily affixed themselves in the front row with their two rolled up posters. As it was, he and Shouyou barely caught gazes, and he was surprised to see a flush creep across his friend’s cheeks when Kageyama caught where his eyes were looking and bent down close to his ear to ask him a question. 

He was so nervous about their own presentation that he mostly tuned out the rest of the presentations. The only group he paid any attention to was Shouyou and Kageyama, and that was only because of the interesting looks on Shouyou’s face as they were doing their presentation. They had chosen gravitational attraction for their project, and using a series of complicated equations had calculated the force of the gravitational attraction between their two bodies with differing amounts of distance between them. To demonstrate, they held a string taut between them marked at different lengths. 

“And so, since the equation is inversely proportional in the first order, if we halve the distance between us, the gravitational force each of our bodies exerts on the other doubles.” 

Based on the red creeping across Shouyou’s cheekbones, Noya guessed that the “gravitational” attraction between the two of them had more than doubled, but he held in his snickers. 

“And,” Kageyama continued with a gleam in his eye, “each of our bodies exerts an attractional force on the other equal in magnitude but opposite in direction, even though I’m much taller than Hinata.” 

The fact that Shouyou didn’t protest being called short was very telling. Noya almost let his crackle slip out as he discretely took a photo of the pair. That would make for some fantastic blackmail material later. 

He almost didn’t notice when Takeda ushered the two boys away from the front of the classroom and called his and Asahi’s names, only recognizing it was their turn when Asahi touched his shoulder. 

“Ready, Noya?” 

Jumping out of his chair, he nodded. “Do you need any help carrying it?” 

“No, I’m fine. Just get the poster.” 

Though he tried not to stare, Noya couldn’t help but feel that the entire class was looking at him watch the way Asahi’s muscles bunched under his shirt as he lifted their wrapped project and carried it to the front of the classroom. Hastily averting his eyes, he grabbed the poster and hurried after Asahi, setting it up against the blackboard as his partner settled their contraption on the floor and pulled the sheet off with accidental dramatic flare. 

The entire class shifted forward to get a better look at it, even Takeda. Noya had to admit that it looked impressive, with the four-inch nails studding the plywood, and even though he knew logically from his calculations that it would take a lot of force for it to actually hurt someone, it looked dangerous. 

“So,” Asahi started a bit nervously, “we, um… we built a bed of nails. And, um, the math is…” He gestured vaguely at their poster, and Noya jumped in, recognizing his cue. 

“Based on the equation here, the force applied to a person’s body by the gravitational pull of the earth is spread out over the area they have in contact with the surface underneath them. Even though if you stepped on a single nail, it would go through your foot, if you step on a bunch of them, it spreads the weight out so you won’t get hurt. We spaced these nails close enough together so a person can sit or lay down on the board and it won’t hurt, and this equation can tell you how much normal force is reflected by each nail based on the amount of surface area and the weight of the individual person.” 

“Or object,” Asahi jumped in, pulling out a balloon and blowing it up. He placed it on the bed of nails, and Noya placed a special board they had prepared on top of it. 

“Can anyone guess how much weight it will take to pop this balloon?” 

In the front row, Shouyou raised his hand. “Three kilos?” 

“Higher.” 

“Ten kilos?” 

“Even higher.” 

His eyes bulged. “ _ A hundred kilos _ ?” 

Behind Noya, Asahi laughed quietly. “Not quite that much. Watch.” 

He piled the specially prepared weights, each one marked as five kilos, on top of the balloon, one by one. The balloon flattened and strained after the addition of each one, but didn’t pop, and the class shifted forward in their seats as each weight left the balloon intact. Finally, the seventh one became too much, and the balloon popped with a bang that caused several of the more nervous students to jump. 

“Thirty-three kilos was our calculated maximum weight,” Noya announced proudly as Asahi removed the balloon and the weights. 

“Very impressive.” Takeda nodded to them. “Good job on your project, boys, and thank you very much for the practical demonstration. You two were our last pair, so everyone can take the rest of the class off now-” 

Shouyou shot to his feet, cutting the teacher off. “Wait, Sensei! Can we try to sit on it?” 

“Sit on it…?” Takeda shot an apprehensive look at the nail-studded plywood. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea…” 

“It’s totally safe!” Noya quickly assured him, dropping down onto it with only a small wince, miscalculating the amount of force his momentum would add to his weight. “We tried it out before. You can even lay down on it if you want!” 

After more of the students started begging Takeda to let them sit on it, he finally relented and half the class rushed up for their chance on the bed of nails, the other half looking on nervously and slowly trickling forward. One by one, they all sat or laid down on the bed, and Noya couldn’t keep a stupid grin from occupying his face. They had done it, together! And it looked like theirs was the most popular project in the class, too! Glancing up at Asahi to gauge his reaction, Noya saw that he had a nervous glint in his eye and his hands were shaking as he explained something to one of their classmates, but there was a smile seated solidly on his lips. 

“How much weight can it actually hold? You know, without stabbing you?” A student asked Noya. 

His chest puffed out with pride. “Depends on the surface area, but a lot! It can comfortably hold both Asahi’s and my weight together, no problem!” 

“Really?!” The student’s eyes widened, and a few more around them tuned into their conversation. “Can you show us?” 

“Sure!” He jumped up in a nearby chair to shout over the heads of the chattering students. “Hey, Asahi! Can we show them the thing we did while we were testing it?” 

In the middle of a word, Asahi just about jumped out of his skin and his mouth gaped open when he saw Noya in the chair. “Can we… what?” 

“Noya, get down from there right now! And no yelling!” 

Wincing under Takeda’s glare, Noya swiftly got down from the chair. “Sorry, Sensei. You know, Asahi, the thing with the board!” 

“Oh!” Asahi’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Um, sure. Just let me grab it…”

Noya cleared back the people as Asahi prepared what they needed, explaining what was about to happen. “We did this to test the distribution of weight. When one person lays down, their weight is distributed across all the points. But if you add more weight in one small area, like if another person sat down on the person’s stomach, it could hurt a lot. So we used a board to distribute the weight more evenly, and suddenly we could put a lot more weight on it. Like this.” 

Asahi was already laying down when Noya turned back, the board across his stomach. Gingerly, Noya sat down on the board, then after glancing at Asahi’s face, pulled himself into a kneeling position so all his weight was resting on the other boy’s torso. Their audience clapped, but Noya only grinned, then carefully maneuvered himself into a position where he could stand. 

He took a bow at the resulting cheer, then jumped down off Asahi. “Does anyone else want to try?” 

They had a few more takers, but not many. Someone spoke up as the last person got off and Asahi sat up. “Can you do it the other way around?” 

“Pardon?” 

“With Asahi standing on Noya,” the student clarified. “Is it possible?” 

At any other time, Noya might have brushed off the comment as a little too risky, but then the student followed it with, “Noya’s so much smaller than Asahi…” 

Bristling, Noya marched up to the bed of nails and grabbed the board from Asahi. “Of course we can! The math proves it!” 

“Noya…” Asahi started with a frown, but Noya shut him up with a glare. 

“Just sit on me, Asahi.” He laid down on the nails and placed the board across his middle, gesturing to it. “Well?” 

After a few more moments of deliberation, Asahi gave a small shake of his head accompanied by a sigh. “If you think it will work. But tell me if it hurts, okay?” 

“It won’t hurt. Hurry up!” 

With one more sigh, Asahi carefully settled his weight down in the center of the board. His feet were still on the floor, his full weight not even on Noya yet, but already Noya was starting to feel squashed. The nails didn’t feel like they were in any danger of piercing his skin, but they were more noticeable now. After a glance at Noya’s face, to which he flashed a smile, Asahi tucked his feet up and moved so he was kneeling on his hands and knees on Noya’s torso, his head ducking down only a hand's breadth above Noya’s own. 

Oh. Asahi was  _ heavy _ . Again, it didn’t feel like he was in any danger of hurting himself, but the nails were starting to dig into his back harder than before, and it was decidedly harder to breathe. His eyes widening, Noya found himself looking straight up into Asahi’s eyes, hiding something undefinable. They darkened as Noya gazed deeper into their depths, and he suddenly wished that Asahi would close the remaining distance between them and kiss him, audience be damned. 

The moment was broken when applause startled Asahi into pulling back. His cheeks flushing, he muttered a quick, “Probably shouldn’t try standing up. Don’t want to press our luck,” before jumping back to the floor as quickly and carefully as he could and extending a hand to help Noya off the table. For a second, Noya could only stare at it, stunned, then he took it. The board on his chest clattered to the floor as he stood, and after he blinked a few times, he grinned and pulled Asahi into a pair bow by their still-connected hands. 

The bell rang. 

Noya hadn’t noticed it getting close to the time for class to end, so he jumped as the rest of the class started flooding out of the classroom, chattering excitedly. When they were the only people left beside Takeda, the teacher bestowed a smile on them. 

“Well done, boys. That was the best project I’ve seen in a while. I bet you’re glad I didn’t let you switch partners now, aren’t you?” 

The words hit Noya like a punch in the gut. He’d almost forgotten the feeling he’d gotten when he’d found Asahi trying to switch partners. Quickly dropping Asahi’s hand, he wiped it against his own pants. “We managed to make it work.” 

A small frown drew together Takeda’s eyebrows. “I… see. Do you need any help carrying your project outside, or do the two of you have it?” 

“We can get it, but thank you,” Asahi said, his gaze looking sideways at Noya. “I can drive you home, Noya, so you don’t have to worry about missing the bus.” 

Noya hadn’t even thought of that, but his brain wasn’t exactly in peak condition right at that moment. Silently, he helped Asahi clean up the remnants of their project and carry it out of the classroom so Takeda could lock the door, then outside the school to manhandle it in the backseat of Asahi’s car. 

“I don’t exactly know what I’m going to do with this,” Asahi admitted as he slammed the car door shut on their project. “Save it for posterity, maybe. Memories. Do you want it?” 

Noya would rather have a tall, glass-hearted giant as his souvenir from the project than the bed, but he kept that observation to himself. “Maybe, but I don’t know where I’d keep it. You don’t want it?” 

The reddening of Asahi’s cheeks told Noya there was something he wasn’t saying, but he just shook his head and gestured to the passenger side door. “I can put it in the garage for now, and decide later.” 

After Noya got in the car, Asahi climbed in the driver’s side door and started the engine. It purred to life in the silence, the only sound that echoed between the two occupants of the vehicle as Asahi pulled out of the school parking lot and started towards Noya’s house. The thoughts that ran through Noya’s head were loud enough to drown out any potential awkwardness, though, as he stared down at his hands clasped into his lap. 

He didn’t want this to end. His crush on Asahi had only grown stronger over the course of the project, if that was possible. But now that they were done, Noya didn’t have any excuse to hang around him any longer. Of course, they had become friends of a sort, but how far did that go for Asahi? Did he even want to hang around Noya anymore, after yesterday’s fiasco? 

Suddenly, Noya asked, “Hey, Asahi, do you want to come over this weekend?” 

“Why? We don’t have that project to work on anymore.” 

_ Ouch _ . Noya winced. Well, that answered that question; Asahi certainly didn’t want to spend any more time around him. Muttering a quick, “No reason,” he changed the subject. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“What kind of question?” 

Noya bit his lip. “Why did you try to get us switched apart?” 

Asahi jerked at the wheel, his knuckles whitening and his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Why… why do you ask?” 

“Because I want to know.”  _ I want to know if you couldn’t stand me from the beginning, or whether that came later.  _

“Well, um…” he cast a quick sideways glance at Noya before refocusing on the road. “You seemed pretty adamant on working with Hinata, and I didn’t want to get between you, so… I guess I thought it would be easier than having a partner who resented me for not being their friend.” 

Noya sucked in a breath. He had suspected as much. But Asahi wasn’t done yet. 

“Also… I don’t know if you know this, Noya, but you’re a very intimidating person. You’re smart, brave, not afraid to voice your opinion… I was afraid that you would think I was too quiet, weak-willed.” 

Noya blinked. That… wasn’t what he’d expected. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” 

They pulled into Noya’s driveway. He looked down at his hands in his lap and whispered, too quietly for Asahi to hear over the roar of the engine, “You’re not too quiet. You’re perfect, and I-” 

Asahi cut the engine. 

“-really like you.” 

Both Noya and Asahi froze as the final words resounded through the silent car, completely discernable. Slowly, Asahi’s hands slipped from the steering wheel. 

“Wha… what did you say?” 

Noya’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I said… I don’t think you’re too quiet. I think you’re perfect, and I really like you.” 

After a few seconds of tense silence, Asahi started, “Noya, I-” 

Before he could talk himself of it, Noya launched himself towards Asahi’s cheek with the intention of kissing it. However, he realized just before he hit that Asahi was turning in order to talk to him, so instead of landing on his cheek, his lips made contact with the corner of Asahi’s mouth. Asahi’s words tumbled to a halt as Noya realized what he’d done, but he couldn’t convince his frozen muscles to pull back and sever the contact. A breath trembled out through Asahi’s lungs, ghosting over Noya’s lips and providing enough clarity into his mind to wrench back and stare into Asahi’s shocked eyes. 

“Asahi, I’m sorry, I didn’t-! That wasn’t-!” 

“Noya.” 

Asahi’s eyes were dark, his face a composed facade, and Noya couldn’t bring himself to face the rejection that was coming. Fumbling desperately behind him, he grabbed the handle of the door and pushed it open. 

“I’m sorry if I ruined everything! If you don’t like me, I’d still like to be your friend, but you don’t have to force yourself! Just- do whatever! Sorry for bothering you! I-!” 

If he hadn’t that moment fallen backwards out of the car on his ass, Noya might have kept babbling until night had fallen. As it was, the shock caused his mouth to snap shut, then he jumped up and slammed the car door closed before hurrying towards the door of his own house. Tears pricked angrily at his eyes, but he angrily dashed them aside. What purpose did they serve now? 

“Noya!” 

A hand caught Noya’s wrist, bringing him up short. When he swung back around, Asahi’s eyes were wide, as if he was surprised by his own actions. His hand tightened around Noya’s wrist. 

“I don’t… I don’t know what… I want to say… I like you, too!” 

Then he reeled Noya in, and Noya found his lips pressed properly against Asahi’s this time. After the shock wore off, he melted into the embrace, kissing back until he was breathless. Asahi’s hands found his waist, and he suddenly found himself lifted into the air and sat down on the hood of the car, at a better angle for Asahi to cup his cheeks as he kissed him harder. Emboldened, Noya nipped at Asahi’s lower lip, then reached up to tangle his hands in his hair - he was touching Asahi’s hair! - and tug him closer. 

They were both panting when they broke apart. Asahi’s cheeks were the pinkest Noya had ever seen them, but he was grinning triumphantly. 

“So,” Noya grinned, “I’ll ask again. Do you want to come over this weekend and hang out?” 

Asahi’s eyes sparked. “Why not tonight?” 

Noya answered him with a kiss. This time, they were broken apart by the appearance of Noya’s mother at the door. 

“Yuu! Are you going to invite your boyfriend in for supper or just make out with him in our front yard all evening?” 

Blushing, Noya pulled back. “Do you want to?” 

Asahi’s eyebrows drew together. “Have dinner with your family?” 

“No.” Noya shifted, his face heating up. “Be my boyfriend?” 

After a moment of confusion, his face cleared and Asahi pressed a peck against the corner of Noya’s mouth. “Yes to both.” 

Giggling, Noya jumped off the hood of the car. “I hope you know both of us are about to be teased mercilessly. Are you sure you still want to come inside,  _ boyfriend _ ?” 

“What kind of  _ boyfriend _ would I be if I left you to face them alone?” 

With a laugh, Noya grabbed Asahi’s hand and pulled him up the path to the front door. “We’re coming, Mom!” 

The pressure on his hand intensified as Asahi squeezed gently. “Together.” 


End file.
